A puppy love? A monkey love? Whatever …, I don’t care. In any case, I still couldn’t let her go from my mind.

Her charming smile, the graceful demeanor and gesture, the way she looks so smart when working on something. It was etched, engraved, and stored perfectly in my forgetful brain.

She’s smarter than me, like damn, she’s way beyond my league. I’m pretty much a big dumbo now and then. If we met at different situation, like for example, right now …, and I confessed my feeling to her. Then probably, she wouldn’t accept this average me.

Let’s start from the start with few contexts.

When I was eight graders, I was still trying to adapt with my new environment. It’s been around a half year since I left the cold yet luxurious mansion of Prof. Tommy, returned to where I supposed to belong …, the good old home in the hometown of Temanggung.

It was …, pretty good first year in my Junior High. But really, I feel so conflicted. I became an exchange student perhaps at the most unfortunate times of all. My second brother just won a National Competition at LIPI with his “soulsister” as he often refers Mbak Aqila as such. And since my brother has such great exposure and popularity among the other students, I too got exposed because of it.

Mbak: Javanese word to refer an older sister or woman.

Yeah, it’s like I’m getting a free ride to the bandwagon. I joined the extracurricular activity that my brother also in part of. Which is KIR, Pencak Silat, and also Boyscout. Though, being a coconut boy didn’t bode well with me. I’m a lazy ass who prefer to laze around indoor rather than being scorched by the heat sunray.

I’m active at the other two. The KIR was a research club that is founded by my own brother with nine of his friends, it stands for Kelompok Ilmiah Remaja or Youth Scientific Group. The aim of such extracurricular was to encourage the students to excel in academics and aim to win some science competition or paper competitions.

The organizational of this extracurricular club was decent when it was in the hand of my brother’s and friends. And also with the second generation, my upperclassmen. At the end of 7th grade, I was appointed as the next president of the club. It was such an honor, and also a huge responsibility.

But I failed miserably.

I don’t know …, I’m never good at organizing stuff. I can’t do my own bed not until High School. The vice-president, which was the second highest vote receivers left and stopped coming to the club. She focused on following Mrs. Yan. There was only me, my friends from Class P1, and the members from the Class U4 & U3.

But it was around this period of my life I met, knew, and get closer with her for the first time.

Her name …, let’s call it Ai. It was the nickname I gave her, and I still feel she’s the “Ai” of my life. How we met, it’s actually pretty creepy if anything.

Ai (愛): Japanese word for love

When I was on my 8th Grade, my second brother enrolled MUHI Jogja Highschool …, and it was only me in the house with my parents. So I was freer than I ever had, I can use the computer as I like …, I can watch anime as I pleased, and I can play game until late midnight.

It was the age of SMS. People who had a smartphone at that time can be counted with hands. I bought a cheap IM3 ooredoo number and also purchased 1000 SMS package for only Rp 500, if I remember it correctly. Most of the time, I texted with Mbak Aqila. Talking about anime and some random stuffs.

One day, she talked about the mourning flag raised in front of the pretty twins from U3 & U4. As I was curious, I abused my authority as the president of KIR club and contacted some of the girls from U4 and U3 who registered their phone number on the biodata. I asked those girls about if there’s any member of the twin’s family who died today.

And Ai was one of them …, I asked her about this, just like the others. But then …, she’s the only one who I kept on sending text. Unlike others who just answered and then that’s it. Nothing else.

We chatted just about anything, starting from how the culture of our class differs. About the teachers, on language, what we watched, how we study. We talked practically anything …, and one day, she asked me how about going somewhere to study together.

Receiving such invitation from the girl which I had a certain favorability, there’s no way I’d reject it, right? And thus, we made a plan to go on a date, I mean a plan to study together.

On Sunday we went to the Town Library. It was my first time entering this place, and honestly …, it was smaller than I expected.

Our first date ended pretty short, I don’t know …, but after reading some book and asked her to teach me on some basic junior high schools' level of math, I can’t seem to focus with anything. And then I took her out from the library. We walked past the Gumuk Lintang and then found a mosque to do our Zuhur prayer.

I didn’t come from a religious family, sometimes we prayed, but most of the times we didn’t do our prayer. Yet, when I closed to her …, I for somehow became really diligent on doing my prayer to Allah. It’s quite weird if you think about it, I did it not because of my responsibility and need to my Creator, but it was because the girl that I liked ordered me to do it.

We ended our date and went back to our respective house.

It took about three more dates, which mean three more weeks as both of us can only go at Sunday. Before she confronted me about the status of our relationship, and then I asked her to go out with me and be my girlfriend. While I know very well that having a girlfriend at such young and tender age of puberty basically means nothing.

It didn’t work out pretty well, as expected. We had this relationship for not that long. In fact, it was very short …, only about 24 days I dated Ai. While I adore and liked her, I can see that our relationship is affecting our performance within the club. I was the president of the club, and because of my favoritism …, I appointed her as the people-in-charge for a science camp night.

The science camp was held successfully with some minor mishap. I can’t remember if we were already break up by that time, but surely our relationship has started to crack.

I was …, I don’t know. But I think all faults lies on me, yeah …, my mind was in such a mess at that time. My father just received a call from the police office in some region in West Java, they notified that my mother just got detained. She had one of her schizophrenic episode …, and this time, she for somehow took a bus to the West Java, and on the way she ran out of money. Thus, she was arrested by the police as the local reported her.

It was …, yeah, I always forget that my mother isn’t your normal mother. She was never normal, and even more so after she returned home. But this time, I feel very guilty because perhaps, I’m the reason why she left and walked out the house like this.

At that time, my brother from Jogja was in the house. We talked about money, and I mention on how my mother often took some pennies from my piggy bank. I was okay with that; I didn’t hold a grudge about it. I was not some who think too much about money. If I have it then it’s good, if not then it’s alright. But at that time when we talked about on saving some money, I said “it’s like I’m investing on nothing” with a joking tone as she often took my money from the piggy bank. In which, my mother laughed it.

And then, that night she was gone. Took that bus and go away.

After this incident I began thinking …, that perhaps I’m not ready to be with a girl. To have a girlfriend, and to be together with Ai. I like her, I really do, even now I still has some thought on what if everything went differently. If not, then why I aimed for a public university in Surabaya city? This melting hot pot that could burn and tan your skin into dark chocolate.

While some other reason is there, but I think it’s mainly because of her. She went to the one of the technical institutes in this city, and I went to public university nearby that institute as I heard that UNAIR x ITS is such a thing. I’m always fantasizing about the chance happening of us reunited and then the spark re-ignited. Though, as of now …, it never happened. It’s only a fantasy in my head and I know the chance of its happening is impossible.

I broke up with her … and tried to find some justification on why I did it. And I stumbled upon an article about dating is a way to get closer to zina, and I used it to justify our breakup. Even though as of now it was all positive and I don’t even touch her or do anything inappropriate. I made her promise me to not date other guy without the intention to marry.

Zina: Arabic word for fornication

Yeah, and so that’s it … and yeah, I think I’m quite dumb. And for somehow, she has become more estranged than a stranger herself with me. Whenever we saw each other, she often walked away, didn’t register me, or just straight ignored my presence. I know it was my fault, but this isn’t what I want.

However, now it has passed and we’re both adult with our concerns and more mature thought. The last time I met her it was at the University Fair, at early 2023 …, and she’s still really pretty.

Ai was such caring, soft spoken, cute, and very clever girl. One thing that I like about her was her smile. She has beautiful and neatly arranged teeth, in which I always mesmerized whenever I saw her smiling.

I can’t let go of her visage out of my mind. She is my first and real crush, and I still hold a certain feeling about her.

Good luck on your life, Ai.

I know we’re not meant to be,
but I will always hold this memory dearly inside my gallery.
The gallery that would endure the passage of time,
because this feeling I had for you is true.